My essay, ‘Prison Literature: Constraint and Creativity,’ is up at Three Quarks Daily. Here is an introduction/abstract: In his Introduction to Hegel’s Metaphysics (University of Chicago Press, 1969, pp 30-31), Ivan Soll attributes “great sociological and psychological insight” to Hegel in ascribing to him the insight that “the frustration of the freedom of act results in the search ofContinue reading “‘Prison Literature: Constraints And Creativity’ Up At Three Quarks Daily”
Tag Archives: freedom
Blade Runner 2049: Our Slaves Will Set Us Free
Blade Runner 2049 is a provocative visual and aural treat. It sparked many thoughts, two of which I make note of here; the relationship between the two should be apparent. What is the research project called ‘artificial intelligence’ trying to do? Is it trying to make machines that can do the things which, if doneContinue reading “Blade Runner 2049: Our Slaves Will Set Us Free”
Talking Philosophy With Kids At The Brooklyn Public Library
This Sunday afternoon at 4PM, I will be participating in a Philosophy for Kids event at the Grand Army Plaza branch of the Brooklyn Public Library (in the Info Commons Lab); the event is sponsored by the Cultural Services Office of the French Embassy. I’ll be functioning as a kind of Philosophical Advice Columnist takingContinue reading “Talking Philosophy With Kids At The Brooklyn Public Library”
The Tethered Eagle And The Refugee Refused Entry
A little over fourteen years ago, in the fall of 2002, shortly after I returned to the US after finishing my post-doctoral fellowship in Australia, I went to see the Yankees play at the old Yankees Stadium. I had arrived in New York City just a couple of weeks earlier; the Yankees were in contentionContinue reading “The Tethered Eagle And The Refugee Refused Entry”
Scott Walker: Destroying Tenure, Keeping You ‘Free’
Scott Walker is well on his way to destroying one of the finest systems of public education in this country. Those who cheered his attack on public sector unions will cheer this move on too: it has everything they want. A repeal of tenure, destruction of faculty governance, budget slashing, more power to university administrators.Continue reading “Scott Walker: Destroying Tenure, Keeping You ‘Free’”
Kundera On Virtuous and ‘Timid’ Centers
In Immortality, (HarperCollins, New York, 1992, pp. 75) Milan Kundera writes: Goethe: the great center. Not the center in the sense of a timid point that carefully avoids extremes, no, a firm center that holds both extremes in a remarkable balance… There is something Nietzschean about the kind of center that Kundera has in mind.Continue reading “Kundera On Virtuous and ‘Timid’ Centers”
Freedom in the Absence of Social Convention
In reviewing Arturo Fontaine‘s La Vida Doble, “a harrowing examination of violence during the Pinochet period,” whose heroine is Lorena, “a female terrorist who is tortured, changes sides, and becomes a torturer herself”, David Gallagher writes: But why in fact do good fathers and meek husbands and generous lovers undertake such cruel torture? Here Lorena seesContinue reading “Freedom in the Absence of Social Convention”
Prohibitionists and Their Impoverished Sense of Human Motivation
A few days ago, I wrote a post here on David Brooks’ inane ‘Weed: Been There, Done That‘ Op-Ed. Looking back on it now, what strikes me as most galling about Brooks’ post and other pro-prohibition sentiments that I’ve heard expressed in the past is the shriveled, impoverished, reductive view they have of human character.Continue reading “Prohibitionists and Their Impoverished Sense of Human Motivation”
Hegel’s Stoic and Prison Literature
In his Introduction to Hegel’s Metaphysics (University of Chicago Press, 1969, pp 30-31), Ivan Soll notes that, With great sociological and psychological insight Hegel says that “stoicism, the freedom which goes back into the pure universality of thought, could appear as a general form of the world spirit only in a time of general fearContinue reading “Hegel’s Stoic and Prison Literature”
Samir Chopra 